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Bootcamps vs. College

blog.triplebyte.com

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Re: Bootcamps vs. College

#231

Post by xapata »

SilasX wrote: post #168
lloyd-christmas wrote: post #26

How is this possible? I think one key aspect that is missing is that boot camp graduates aren't straight off the barista lineup. I took one at age 28 after having worked in a technical role in finance since undergrad. The average age of my class was probably 29. Beyond just time in the workforce, I had a double major in math and economics with a minor in applied statistics. Had I dropped "Behavioral Economics" and ta…

Ditto! I went to a bootcamp after having worked in aerospace for 6+ years and, I had a mechanical engineering degree. I had programmed for a long time and had no problem with basic algorithm exercises (of the kind they spend the early part of these camps on). [1] The problem is, there was no easy way -- for someone like me wanting to go into software -- to (convincingly) say, "Hey, I can code and think abstractly. Gi…

> Frustratingly, the instructors were very unhelpful at the stuff I needed help with the most -- forming a mental model of how and why Rails works.

I suspect that's because they didn't know how or why.

Rails has a lot of magic -- just follow the convention and it works. Magic can be good, because it encourages a standard. Unfortunately, many Rails programmers seem comfortable leaving the magic as a mystery rather than learning how it works and why it was designed as it is.

Re: Bootcamps vs. College

#232

Post by warlox »

ldehaan wrote: post #149
andrewvc wrote: post #107

What a load of crap. What, they bred the capacity for abstract thought into you in college? College attracts a generally higher quality applicant pool. You're mistaking selection bias for an effect. Let me tell you, I've interviewed programmers from all over. There are boatloads of people with CS degrees with close to zero capacity for creative thinking. There are also boatloads of CS grads who can barely code their…

Same here, I have dealt with this since I was 13 years old, and it's total bs. my first job in computers was 13 at a local college and I got so much crap from the it team there for being too young and not having enough experience even though I was hired because nobody there could write code well enough to parse dirty data from spreadsheets to pass into spss. most of my family has a degree and some even teach, but I f…

Simply out of curiosity, how did you get anyone to hire you at 13? Wouldn't child labor laws be a huge disincentive for someone to hire you?

Re: Bootcamps vs. College

#233

Post by [deleted] »

busterarm wrote: post #212
lsadam0 wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There were a few hundred applications to sort through for the position. Applicants all received the same test. The initial response is used to filter the pool and decide with whom to speak with further. Only with a filtered applicant pool is it reasonable to sit and discuss their solution with. Some criteria is needed to filter the pool, so obviously those that have submitted a better initial solution will be selecte…

There are many reasons why I think this process is broken that others have written so much at length about enough that I'm not going to bother taking the time. If it's enough for you to say that because you have a test that everyone takes and it filters your candidates so that's proof of ability, without even going into the results and asking if your test is optimizing for the correct things, there's nothing I can sa…

[deleted]

Re: Bootcamps vs. College

#234

Post by ammon »

mrdrozdov wrote: post #209
brudgers wrote: post #184

There are several factors that don't enter this analysis. 1. Bootcamps can be selective over a range of non-academic criteria such as interview skills, personal hygene, and prior work experience. Or to put it another way, unlike a public university, a boot camp can select for culture fit both in its internal cohorts and in the workplaces it targets. 2. Bootcamps tend to attract people with previous work experience: s…

How does Triplebyte make money? A lot of bootcamps place graduates as part of their process (and is how some of them make money), which is another factor to consider.

Bootcamps charge tuition. They do this because getting placement fees from companies requires consistently referring very strong candidates (a higher bar). They are competing with universities.

Re: Bootcamps vs. College

#235

Post by marcelluspye »

lloyd-christmas wrote: post #58
madmax96 wrote: post #32

I have a slightly more pessimistic view of the situation: Sure, bootcamp grads can write a web application just fine; after all, it's usually only CRUD. But what value are they bringing to an organization? Why would I pay them the same amount as a college graduate who undoubtedly has more total knowledge not only in CS, but in other areas as well? Ideally, a college should expose students to a diverse range of knowle…

> Why would I pay them the same amount as a college graduate These people ARE college grads. I'm not sure where this seemingly pervasive view is coming from. My class had 1 person without an undgraduate degree, and several with masters. > i.e. the ability to communicate clearly, how to do research, how to learn independently The average age of my class was 29. 6-10 years in the workforce tends to demonstrate an exist…

It's a reaction to the question, "can bootcamps replace a CS degree?", to which these people would say, "no."

On the question, "are bootcamps good or bad?" I think most people would tend towards good, though exactly how good is another matter of debate.

Re: Bootcamps vs. College

#236

Post by bobwaycott »

Zeno84 wrote: post #201
bobwaycott wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 1) That's not really a "bootcamp" issue as it is with a candidate who can't be bothered to learn basic programming concepts or open a book on their own. Almost every book I've read on programming covers OOP in most languages. I wholeheartedly disagree here, and think it very much is an issue with bootcamps. If a bootcamp doesn't even introduce its students to such concepts as classes, instances, OOP, and basic data…

>If a bootcamp doesn't even introduce its students to such concepts as classes, instances, OOP, and basic data types, then it has failed to adequately serve its students with fundamental knowledge and offered a shitty introduction to programming. Honestly, if someone doesn't understand these very basic concepts, what's his/her curiosity level regarding computer programming? I would not want to hire him/her based sole…

Honestly, if someone doesn't know these very basic concepts exist, the fundamental error of attribution here is passing judgment on them and their curiosity level. If we fail to teach, we cannot blame the students for not knowing they were failed, and specifically how.

If someone goes through and passes a bootcamp, it is fair to be generous in granting them some level of curiosity about programming. If the bootcamp doesn't introduce the fundamentals of programming, that's no more the student's fault than it would be the fault of an art history student to not know what chiaroscuro is if it wasn't introduced as part of art history.

Bootcamps market and position themselves as good alternatives for people to learn how to program and, often, get a job. I see no reason to neglect holding them to their promise.

Re: Bootcamps vs. College

#237

Post by [deleted] »

dionidium wrote: post #197
lsadam0 wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There were a few hundred applications to sort through for the position. Applicants all received the same test. The initial response is used to filter the pool and decide with whom to speak with further. Only with a filtered applicant pool is it reasonable to sit and discuss their solution with. Some criteria is needed to filter the pool, so obviously those that have submitted a better initial solution will be selecte…

You're talking about a single junior-level position and you had a few hundred applications? That isn't passing my smell test.

[deleted]

Re: Bootcamps vs. College

#238

Post by SilasX »

HNcow wrote: post #36

I'm in the process of hiring a junior position and have no bias towards college grads or bootcamp grads. The only negatives towards boot camp grads I've seen so far is: 1) One candidate had no idea what the terms "Class" or "OOP" even meant. I'm FINE with them not understanding stuff like sorts/advanced data structures, but he ACTUALLY had 0 idea what an int was. No lie! 2) I wish there wasn't such a heavy reliance o…

Funny story: Before I started a camp, I went to a "hack night" where they had professional RoR devs as the mentors.

I was still learning Ruby at the time and didn't know how to access an object's member (instance) variables. I asked one of the mentors how to do it (I couldn't find the answer quickly from the documentation). He was stumped and had to hit the docs.

That's like a professional C programmer being stumped at how you refer to a variable's memory location.

Funny how far people can get when knowing little.

Re: Bootcamps vs. College

#239

Post by Kerrick »

dionidium wrote: post #148
sillysaurus3 wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Based on what? The amount of bias in this thread is very strange. I think what's going on is that the people with CS degrees invested a significant chunk of their life and a significant amount of money into getting a CS degree. Therefore they're invested in denying the possibility that the qualities they achieved through their program can be achieved without. The article presents some evidence in support of this poss…

" I think what's going on is that the people with CS degrees invested a significant chunk of their life and a significant amount of money into getting a CS degree. " A few people have made a similar claim in this thread. I think that's a pretty lazy argument for which no real evidence exists. A big clue is that you could say that about literally anything . Oh, sure, of course you'd think cooking classes were a big he…

I'd liken a cooking class to the bootcamps, and a CS degree to a degree in nutrition. Both are valuable, but if your goal is to become a chef one is probably better than the other.

Re: Bootcamps vs. College

#240

Post by warlox »

brudgers wrote: post #184

There are several factors that don't enter this analysis. 1. Bootcamps can be selective over a range of non-academic criteria such as interview skills, personal hygene, and prior work experience. Or to put it another way, unlike a public university, a boot camp can select for culture fit both in its internal cohorts and in the workplaces it targets. 2. Bootcamps tend to attract people with previous work experience: s…

Isn't not letting C students graduate a good thing?
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